How an innovative start-up is leveraging the original ingredient in Coca-Cola to kick start sustainable development in Nigeria

Nigeria has been drowning in oil for decades. Since the mid-1950’s the country has suffered from a ‘resource curse’ economy, where the main source of economic development, oil, fuels concentration of wealth in the hands of a few elite and corrupt political rulers. Oil has not only warped Nigeria’s political and economic development, gas flares from oil extraction in the Niger Delta Region, make the oil industry in Nigeria the single largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions on Earth.

While numerous books and documentaries have shined a light on this crucial global issue, the world seems at a loss for how to address it. But what if a solution was hiding in plain sight? In fact, it might just start with one of the original ingredients in the world’s most ubiquitous soft drink, Coca-Cola.

Nigerian Kolanut: the secret ingredient

A new social purpose company, Bissy Energy, aims to upend this paradigm by building the very first sustainable supply chain for the Nigerian Kolanut. The company was founded by 25-year olds Zach Jide En’Wezoh and his best friend, James Swinyard. Zach discovered Kolanut after he began reading about his family’s history in Nigeria. He was intrigued by a traditional crop that was referenced as part of social ceremonies and wanted to learn more. As he further researched Kolanut, he discovered that while popular in Nigeria, it had almost no export market outside of Nigerian Expats. He recognized there might be an opportunity to share this product with the world, and in the process, promote sustainable economic development in Nigeria.

Bissy is developing the world’s first Fair Trade supply chain for Kolanut production and will be the first certified operators in Nigeria, which is Africa’s largest economy. By popularizing Kolanut consumption in the U.S. and around the world, Bissy aims to bring sustainable economic development to one of the world’s most impoverished nations, where 75% of people are still living on less than $2 per day.

From Exploitation to Fair Trade

While Bissy has a unique ingredient and social mission, the company is following in the footsteps of other sustainability minded food and beverage companies that have leveraged traditional agricultural production to create sustainable economic growth.

The most well-known, is, of course, coffee. However, the initial development of coffee exports offers a cautionary tale of the dangers of supply chains where there is a significant imbalance in power between farmer and purchaser. Modern coffee plants all trace their roots back to the Ethiopian Plateau. From there it was cultivated on the Arabian Peninsula, before expanding worldwide after the Dutch successfully transplanted the first plant in modern-day Indonesia.  

Dutch and other early coffee plantations, unfortunately, did not bring broad-based economic empowerment. Massive plantations exploited the local population, serving to concentrate wealth and fuel political corruption that’s characteristic of a country facing a resource curse – not so different from present-day Nigeria. 

The ‘fair trade’ movement, which began in Europe in the 1960’s, was a reaction to fight back against the neo-colonialist exploitation of agricultural products from less developed countries. By giving disadvantaged producers a ‘fair’ price in world markets, you could support self-determined economic development. Coffee was the first fair trade product to appear on store shelves. The label and certification empowered consumers to support more equitable trade practices with their dollars. The movement since then has expanded rapidly. In 2017, fair trade products topped $9 billion in global sales and supported more than 1.6 million farmers and workers across 75 countries. 

While a clear improvement over previous trade practices and a powerful tool to engage and educate consumers, Fair Trade has faced criticism that it does not go far enough. Major coffee producers, such as Starbucks, and many boutique roasters now preach the gospel of ‘direct trade’ – where you establish a relationship directly with a farmer to ensure fair prices and labor standards. This close relationship also has the benefit of allowing you to share with your customers not only a unique varietal but also the story of the farmer and place.

The Story of Yerba Mate 

Yerba Mate offers a much more positive legacy, largely due to the vision of the founders of Guyaki. Guyaki was the first company to popularize Yerba Mate in the U.S. Yerba Mate is a South American plant that was also used traditionally for its stimulating effects. Guyaki’s entire business model was built upon “market-driven restoration,” where it works directly with indigenous people to preserve the rainforest in Argentina. 

Unfortunately, much indigenous land and rainforest is sold in order to be clear cut and turned into cattle grazing for economic development. Guyaki helps farmers grow Mate under the rainforest canopy, allowing them to preserve their land while making a living. Guyaki also operates under a Fair Trade program where farmers are paid a Living Wage, around three times higher than market rate. Through market-driven restoration, Guyaki leverages sustainable supply chain for Yerba Mate to preserve land and improve create economic opportunity.

The founders of Guyaki poured millions of drinks at grocery stores, farmers’ markets, and trade shows to introduce Mate to the American consumer. Since then, Guiyaki has rapidly expanded, diversifying its product line from loose-leaf to canned drinks and energy shots available in most U.S. supermarkets and health food stores. All the while, the company has kept its initial mission of providing market-driven restoration.

A Sustainable Supply Chain for Kolanut

While Bissy is just starting on its sustainability journey (Bissy’s Kickstarter launched September 10^th and closes October 15th ), the start-up is well on its way to developing the first sustainable and Fair Trade supply chain for Kolanut in Nigeria. Bissy has partnered with the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria (CRIN), an institute funded by the Nigerian government and responsible for conducting research to facilitate improved production of disease-resistant cocoa, Kolanut fruit, coffee, tea, and cashew for local cultivation. Bissy has identified five small local farms to produce Kolanut and is working towards the very first Fair Trade certification ever for Kolanut and ever in Nigeria. 

Production with Purpose

Bissy and Guyaki are among a new crop of new social purpose businesses that are poised to upend the current Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) paradigm. Instead of simply working to reduce their negative impact, these companies are purpose-built to solve critical social and environmental issues. Their social missions become the way they connect to consumers, and their customers become partners with them in scaling the solution.
Take, for example, the sustainable condom company Sustain Natural. Sustain is credited with making the very first all-natural, Fair Trade condoms, but more broadly Sustain is removing the stigma around sex and birth control to empower women to take their sexual and reproductive health into their own hands. Paul Hawken’s recent book, Project Drawdown, cites educating girls and family planning as one of the most impactful areas to prevent global warming, underscoring the critical importance of birth control and sexual education.

Another example is an innovative start-up Bureo, which makes high-quality consumer goods (skateboards and sunglasses) from discarded fishing nets in Chile. The founders got fed up with the plastic pollution on their favorite surfing beaches and decided to build a company around finding a solution. Fishing nets make up 10% of ocean plastic and are the most dangerous type of plastic for marine life. Bureo partners with local communities to gather these nets, and a portion of the proceeds from the product sales are then recycled back into the local community to further develop their upcycled supply chain and product line. Bureo’s Net Plus material is certified under the International Living Future Institute’s Living Product Challenge, the world’s most advanced certification for products that create net positive impacts on Energy, Climate and Water.

This new crop of innovative companies aim to create products that go beyond simply being less bad versions of previously destructive business models, but are actually net positive – meaning for every product they produce, they actually make the world a better place. Their growth and profitability allow them to reinvest in their business and mission to expand their positive impact. These companies are turning our traditionally exploitative capitalistic system back in on itself and using the power of the market to solve crucial social and environmental issues.
In fact, solving problems is really what business does best. For too long, we have just been framing the problems incorrectly. In the words of Albert Einstein, “we cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.”

Just imagine the impact if all our inspired entrepreneurs and corporate leaders alike realized their power to create change and leveraged business to solve the world’s most crucial issues. Instead of creating social and environmental problems, businesses could quickly become one of the world’s most powerful tools for positive change.

Listen to Bissy Co-Founder Zach En’Wezoh tell his story and learn about other products with purpose and other companies re-imagine commerce at this year’s Living Product Expo, which takes place on October 8-10th in Nashville, Tennessee.

Sources:

https://www.intechopen.com/books/sustainable-development-authoritative-and-leading-edge-content-for-environmental-management/oil-exploration-and-climate-change-a-case-study-of-heat-radiation-from-gas-flaring-in-the-niger-delt

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/10/29/1638502/0/en/Fairtrade-Tops-9-Billion-in-Global-Sales-for-First-Time-on-8-Growth.html

https://www.bissyenergy.com/pages/our-farmers

https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/women-and-girls/family-planning

https://living-future.org/lpc/case-studies/the-ahi-performance-cruiser-skateboard/

I have spent the past six and half years of my career at the International Living Future Institute working on sustainable manufacturing initiatives. This experience has opened my eyes to the power of commerce, both positive and negative. In fact, working on product sustainability has begun to fundamentally change my relationship to the products around me. Right now, sitting here at my desk, I have a newly purchased pair of sunglasses. When I look at them, I can’t think of them as just sunglasses. Instead, I think about who made them, where, and with what materials. When I see the ordinary things around me, I can’t help but wonder, what made them possible?

Problematic Mindset and Value: Plastic Fantastic

The specific plastic these glasses are made of is Nylon 6. But what makes Nylon 6 possible? It turns out, the feedstock for Nylon 6 is Benzene. Benzene is an aromatic hydrocarbon and carcinogen, extracted from crude oil in an incredibly high energy and water consuming process. The creation of cheap benzene that feeds the nylon industry is based on a vast system of petroleum extraction and refining that spans the globe and touches nearly every aspect of our global economy today.

As our modern economy has developed and advanced, we have relied largely on oil and other hydrocarbons for fuel. In the extraction and refining of these fossil fuels – or “Dead Dinosaurs”, as Elon Musk would say – you end up with a lot of leftovers. The remnants of those petroleum byproducts are the basis for a cheap, innovative material we have come to depend upon: plastic. Not surprisingly, these man-made chemistries also don’t break down naturally, and we are rapidly discovering that many of the ingredients in the things we use every day have significant impact to human and environmental health.

The use of toxic chemicals in plastic production and other manufacturing processes is so ubiquitous that it is impacting nearly every lifeform on earth. Persistent toxic chemicals are now essentially unavoidable – according to a study by the Environmental Working Group, BPA, a plastic additive with harmful fertility and reproductive side effects, is found in 90% of baby umbilical cords, along with a host of other problematic synthetic chemistries. Toxins are now so pervasive in our bodies they are leading to dramatic health impacts on the entire human population. A global rise in learning disabilities, cancer, obesity and a host of other diseases can be correlated to a global rise in toxic chemical production and use.

A lack of transparency in the market has concealed this usage and accumulation of toxic chemicals from consumers. For example, when I started my career at the Institute in 2012, it was nearly impossible to get any ingredient information about building products, products that daily impact the health of occupants, construction workers and communities surrounding factories.

It is now clear to almost anyone deeply involved sustainable manufacturing that there are fatal flaws in this current system. We might quibble about which chemicals are worse, the best methodology to evaluate them and how to balance trade-offs, but overall, as an industry, we agree something must change.

So if we are all in agreement that the system is fundamentally flawed, what made this system possible? Why are we are polluting our air, our water, and releasing enough greenhouse gas emissions to change the global climate? Why are we continuing to create chemicals that threaten our survival as a species?

I believe the root cause is our mindset and values as a society that we can trace back to some foundational, yet problematic ideas. Milton Friedman, a winner of the Nobel Prize in economics in 1976, and considered the father of modern neoliberal economics, argued that businesses’ only appropriate social responsibility was to increase profits. That mindset pitted profit against environmental protection and social welfare. And for a very long time companies used that logic to pollute. They believed financial performance would suffer if they considered social and environmental good. In this quest for profit, we created massive damage to human health and the environment that we are just now starting to feel.

The Era of Corporate Responsibility

Fortunately, our conception of business has changed dramatically over the past couple decades.  Peter Drucker, one of the best-known management consultants and business authors, famously stated that “the purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.” Companies began to realize that listening and gaining the trust of their customer was key to their long-term success and profitability. Consumer demand and pressure helped usher in a new era of corporate responsibility.

I believe we are now on the verge of an even more fundamental transformation. Companies are actively engaging in the critical social and environmental issues of our time, and using their marketing power to help drive social and cultural transformation.

Nike’s groundbreaking 2018 ad campaign, featuring Colin Kaepernick in his public NFL protest against police brutality, is a recent example of how companies can use their market power to educate and push forward a necessary, if not controversial, conversation. Rather than the ad hurting sales, by taking a bold position on these issues Nike’s online sales and yearend stock valuation skyrocketed. This successful campaign was followed by another powerful “Dream Crazier” campaign featuring inspiring female athletes discussing gender equity in sports.

Companies are beginning to stretch even further, going beyond stakeholder engagement and social commentary, to a new era of innovative corporate responsibility. These companies are strategically searching and finding critical social and environmental problems, and then building their business around solving those problems; their customers and stakeholders become partners in those solutions.

Let’s return to my sunglasses. These glasses are not made of normal nylon material, but rather recycled nylon. And this recycled nylon is no run-of-the-mill recycled nylon, this is recycled nylon made of discarded fishing nets, by an innovative start-up company, Bureo. Bureo works with local fishing communities in Chile to pull cast-off fishing nets out of the water, clean them, grind them into plastic pellets, and then manufacture them into high quality consumer goods using a manufacturing process powered by 100% renewable energy. Even a portion of Bureo’s revenue becomes recycled, donated back into supporting social and economic development in those coastal communities — further building these communities’ capacity to clean up the ocean.

Bureo was started by three surfers who got fed up with swimming in ocean plastic on their favorite beaches. They decided to build a company around solving that problem. Instead of finding or creating new consumers, they identified a problem, and then partnered with their customers to find a solution, harnessing the power of business to scale impact. Bureo now provides the plastic pellets, called NetPlus, as a feedstock and input for other companies, including Patagonia and Humanscale. Humanscale’s Ocean Chair uses 8 pounds of recycled ocean plastic, meaning that every time they ship an order of chairs, a ton of plastic is pulled out of the ocean, more renewable energy is created, and more investment is put back into the local villages to support economic development. 

Products with Purpose

Net Positive Living Products are not just confined to innovative start-ups like Bureo. ILFI is partnering with the world’s largest manufacturing companies to create Living Products at scale, ensuring their products are not only environmentally net positive, but also ensuring that each of their handprinting actions have a social co-benefit.

For instance, Mohawk, the world’s largest flooring manufacturer, is offsetting the entire energy footprint of their Living Products in an incredibly strategic way. Partnering with Groundswell, a non-profit dedicated to developing community solar projects and programs that connect solar power with economic empowerment, Mohawk is installing solar flowers in low income communities and supporting STEM programs to reduce utility bills and train the next generation for high quality jobs.

It’s also important to note that for Mohawk, doing the right thing is actually the most profitable thing. Mohawk’s first Living Product, the Lichen collection, was one of the companies fastest-selling commercial product launches and has become a top-selling style in less than a year.

Companies pursuing the Living Product Challenge are among a group of bold innovative thinkers that are re-imagining commerce. We now have 21 certified Living Products from both innovative start-ups and the world’s largest manufacturing companies, along with dozens more in the pipeline. Together, these manufacturers are starting to create a new industrial ecosystem that can massively reduce waste and solve global crises – at scale. Imagine the world’s largest companies cooperating to solve our greatest challenges, instead of competing on price in a race to the bottom. Imagine deploying the world’s wealthiest corporations working together to search out and solve the world’s most intractable issues, then bringing their customers along in finding a solution.

I encourage everyone to start thinking more deeply about the products around you and imagining what is possible. Let’s not accept the glasses, coffee cup or office chair presented to us without asking the hard questions and spending a moment to imagine what if. What if every act of design and production made the world a better place?

Each product is a tool by which we can re-imagine business, manufacturing and how we relate to each other as a society. Each product can be proof that a new way of doing business is possible if we shift our mindset and our values. The Living Product Challenge is not just a certification program; it is an idea for how we can re-organize ourselves as a society, to regenerate people and the planet. There is no limit to what businesses can achieve when we work together.

Join ILFI at the upcoming Living Product Expo October 8-10^th in Nashville, Tennessee to hear more inspiring stories and learn how you can apply these principles to your company.

The Living Building Challenge launched in 2006 with an exciting and incredibly audacious question: Is it possible to upend the design and construction paradigm to design and create buildings that function as elegantly and beautifully as anything found in the natural world?

At first, the challenge was real. Many professionals questioned whether it was even possible—Could you really design a building that, like a flower, is powered 100% by the sun, harvests all the rainwater it needs for its uses on site, is made only from locally sourced materials, and is beautiful?

A few inspired, intrepid designers and project teams set out to show that it was indeed possible. These first projects, while often small in scale, were large in ambition. Even after their success, some doubters persisted, claiming that even though these first projects showed it was possible, the challenge was not practical, financially feasible and most certainly not scalable.

Now in 2018, the proof is in the ever-growing roster: 86 buildings have met this challenge, and hundreds of others are in eager pursuit.¹

The first project to really break through this barrier was the Bullitt Center, a project that I had the privilege of working on during my senior year at the University of Washington. The Bullitt Center demonstrated that achieving the Living Building Challenge in a six-story Class A commercial building, in the least sunny major city in the continental United States, was not only possible, it was also practical, replicable, and profitable.

This breakthrough project has now encouraged hundreds of follow-on projects in the United States and across the globe, with a ripple effect of redefining what high performance means in commercial design and construction.

Around the same time, ILFI began allowing projects to “Petal” certify by demonstrating leadership in one of the more challenging Petals within the program: Materials, Water, or Energy instead of the whole program. Petal certification opened up new pathways for project teams to demonstrate leadership on a key issue area, and has started a growing trend, particularly for commercial offices. A number of projects are now Petal-certifying the Materials, Health and Happiness, and Beauty Petal. This pathway leverages the Living Building Challenge framework to ensure that companies and organizations are providing the highest quality office space for their employees, a key strategy for many companies to attract and retain top talent.

The first project to pioneer this trend was the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) Chicago Office. NRDC pursued the Living Building Challenge not only to ensure they met the highest levels of environmental performance, but also to ensure the healthiest and highest quality space for their employees. NRDC now has multiple Certified offices including San Francisco and Beijing and is implementing LBC across their real estate portfolio.

Etsy took this strategy to a new scale with their headquarters in Brooklyn, NY, a 200,000-square-foot, Materials Petal–certified project, the largest certified project at the time. Etsy saw the Living Building Challenge as both a way to demonstrate their values and to improve their company’s bottom line by attracting top employees.

Etsy’s record did not stand for long, their achievement was followed shortly thereafter by an even larger certification of Google’s new 250,000-square-foot Chicago renovation. Google’s priority was to have a workplace that was the healthiest environment possible—a place that inspires and empowers Google employees to perform at their best, every day. They chose to pursue Materials Petal certification with a strong focus on Biophilic Design, intentionally fostering design features and architectural moments that connected people with nature.

Since then, the LBC has leapt forward at an unprecedented scale. With numerous projects larger than 100,000 square feet, including corporate campuses over one million square feet, ILFI’s current project counter reads 430 registered projects in 14 countries. The average project size has grown in tandem with this growth.  Newly registered projects regularly exceed 100,000 square feet and are on average over 66,000 square feet in 2017.

The Petal-certified VanDusen Botanical Garden Visitor Cenre | Image courtesy of Nic Lehoux

Project teams and building owners are discovering that pursuing a Living Building gets you more than the greenest building on the block—you end up with a fundamentally better building, superior to almost all standard construction and most current sustainable construction. By addressing key issues of human health, including access to fresh air, daylight, and ventilation, a Living Building just feels better. Now to improve your health, well-being and productivity, one simply walks inside of a Living Building.

As the market for Living Buildings has grown, the value proposition for the Living Building Challenge has become increasingly clear. Owners and developers now realize that the framework of the Living Building Challenge, while still challenging, provides clear and compelling value to owners and occupants, outweighing any incremental costs incurred through meeting the building standard. In consultation with our leading-edge projects, ILFI has identified the following four value propositions that are demonstrating the business case for Living Buildings.

Proven Performance

Unlike other green building certification, ILFI is the only program that requires verification of twelve months of performance data by an independent, third-party auditor, including on-site inspection. Instead of relying on prescriptive standard or design calculations, the LBC’s third-party auditors ensure each project is meeting the highest standard for quality and regenerative design based on a twelve-month performance period.

Performance verification ensures that projects function as designed, and the third-party process creates accountability for project teams throughout all project phases. Living Building Challenge projects regularly provide best-in-class energy consumption and saving, and many redefine the level of energy efficiency possible for their project type and climate zone. Living and Zero Energy Buildings are counted among the best performing projects on the market today.

Industry Recognition

By pursuing the Living Building Challenge, you will be joining the ranks of the world’s leading sustainable designs and earn high-profile industry recognition and visibility. Living Buildings are regularly recognized with national and international media attention and garner prestigious design awards. The American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment (COTE) regularly selects Living Buildings for their prestigious Top Ten Award. In fact, a Living or Zero Energy Building has been selected every year for this award since 2014 and made up 40% of the award winners in 2016.

Over the past four years, World Architecture News has selected Living Buildings for their sustainable buildings category, including two winners in 2013 and 2014. The VanDusen Botanical Gardens, in Vancouver, BC, pictured below, was selected as the world’s most sustainable building in 2014.

The Petal-certified VanDusen Botanical Garden Visitor Cenre | Image courtesy of Nic Lehoux

Living Buildings are regularly profiled in national and international publications, including GreenBiz, CNN, the New York Times, Huffington Post, Fast Company, Fortune Magazine, and countless other trade journals and online publications.

Invest in the Future

Living Buildings are resilient, self-sufficient systems that provide energy and water security for decades to come, as well as long-term financial benefits to the owners and occupants.

When you create a building that earns Living Building Challenge certification, you have not only delivered a building designed for occupant comfort, but you’ve delivered to your client, employees, or community a resilient building: a building that is self-sufficient, that is energy- and water-independent, that eliminates future risks in an uncertain climate and world.

While costs specific to the Living Building Challenge are difficult to distinguish from overall project costs, the data is becoming increasingly clear, especially in regards to Zero Energy.  The most recent research shows that the cost premium is 5-19% to achieve Zero Energy. Current tax credits and renewable energy credits can, in some locales, provide up to a 30% return on investment for achieving Zero Energy, compared to an ROI of only 5-12% for typical energy conservation measures.⁴

For example, The Bullitt Center, which was the first speculative commercial office building to meet the Living Building Challenge, is already a performing financial asset for its owner, the Bullitt Foundation, demonstrating that the Living Building Challenge is financially beneficial for owners with reasonably long time horizons for their investment.

Prioritize People

Perhaps the most compelling value proposition for current owners and occupants is that the Materials, Health and Happiness, and Beauty Petal frameworks ensure that the buildings provide healthy, productive environments that prioritize people.

There is a 3-30-300 rule of thumb in real estate that states organizations typically spend approximately $3 per square foot per year for utilities, $30 for rent, and $300 for payroll.² While these figures are general estimates and can vary, they help to underscore the critical importance of investing in the well-being of occupants. According to the 3-30-300 model, the greatest financial benefit to pursuing a Living Building Challenge project may not be the energy or water savings. For example, a 2% energy efficiency improvement would result in savings of $0.06 per square foot, but a 2% improvement in productivity would result in a gain of $6 per square foot through increased employee performance.

The benefits of green building to employee health and productivity are becoming increasingly well researched and understood. A recent study from the Harvard School of Public Health demonstrated that improved air quality and other green features in buildings improved the cognitive function of building occupants.³ Cognitive function scores were better in green building conditions compared to the conventional building conditions across nine functional domains, including crisis response, strategy, and focused activity level.

If you factor in the potential benefits from fewer sick days, and better employee recruitment and retention, the benefits are even higher.

Catalyzing Change

While the business case for Living Buildings is becoming increasingly clear, particularly with regards to human health and well-being, for many companies and organizations, the most compelling reason to pursue an LBC project is the opportunity for each project to become a catalyst for change in the community and industry. By working toward the LBC, your project will help accelerate a movement toward a complete remaking of our built environment to work in harmony with the natural world, which is desperately needed in a time of growing climate change and environmental decline. Each Living Building helps redefine what is possible in its sector and climate and becomes an inspiration for other project teams to dream bigger and reach higher. While the business case for Living Buildings is becoming clearer every day, you can’t put a price on changing the world.

Notes

1. At the time of publication there are 86 Certified project that consist of Living, Petal and Zero Energy Certification. For more details, see our project case studies. View case studies.
2. Green + Productive Workplace
3. The impact of green buildings on cognitive function
4. Data from https://newbuildings.org/sites/default/files/ZNECostComparisonBuildingsDC.pdf